


Moondrops & Stardust

by Ghost_Tea



Category: Original Work
Genre: Also A Warning For Those Who Don’t Enjoy It, Blood Magic, Blood and Injury, But The Tag Is There For People Who Don’t Like It, Dark Magic, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Fae & Fairies, Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, Homosexuality, M/M, Magic, Original Fiction, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Violence, Violence Not Between The Main Characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:34:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24560872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_Tea/pseuds/Ghost_Tea
Summary: Roscoe Lowell is an average man, living in a not so average country town. Ever since he was young, he’s been bombarded by tall tales and myths of the creatures that live in the forests surrounding his home. Demons, the young people call them. The elderly insist that they are the fae folk, who have inhabited the earth long before mankind.He doesn’t believe a word of it.At least, not until he discovers something strange within his own farm.Perhaps those tall tales were not so tall after all.
Relationships: Human Male/Fairy Male, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 8





	Moondrops & Stardust

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not repost or republish my work to other sites. Thank you.
> 
> IMPORTANT — For those who didn’t read the tags, this work contains the following: lgbtq+ elements and characters, violence, blood, eventual smut, and magic. If any of those make you uncomfortable, then do not read. I will mark chapters with each tag accordingly.
> 
> Hello, All! This is my first work published to Archive and the first I’ve written in a while, but I hope that some dear readers enjoy it. I will try to maintain a regular posting schedule, every Friday perhaps. I don’t like leaving projects half done, so worry not over this being unfinished. No idea how long this might turn out to be, but I’ll say roughly twenty or so chapters.
> 
> Anyway, enough of my rambling. Please enjoy the story and I’d love to see any lovely comments!
> 
> EDIT:: Hello everyone who has been reading this trainwreck of a story! After a very long break and a lot of stress, I've decided to completely rewrite both what I've posted for this work and what I had planned to post. I wasn't happy with the way it was going so, if you'll forgive the slow as hell posting schedule, please expect edits to the existing chapters and new ones to come soon.

Daily business for Roscoe was farming and it was the same uninteresting business as always. The ground hadn’t seen a drop of rain, snow or hail in almost four months, sandy and too dry to offer his crops any much needed nutrients. He took care to be generous when he watered them each day, but it didn’t seem to help much. It was like the water he gave was being forced down deep into the earth, far out of the reach of the roots beneath the surface. He thought he might get lucky, with his land being closer to the forest’s edge, where there was more shade from the harsh, unforgiving sun, and the river only a short distance away. That was not the case, for mother nature knew no kindness.

Unlike the plants, his farmhand did not take well to the intensely dry heat. His tanned skin was deepened to a shade of red similar to the clump of beets in his hand that he placed into a basket by his knee. They were sad-looking, in comparison to what they might have been like the previous year. “It’s fuckin’ hot as all hell today,” the bulky man grumbled and pulled the straw hat from his head, sweat beaded against his brow. His blond hair was stuck to his forehead with it. “I swear, it doesn't feel like spring this year. Barely got any snow and now we’re not gettin’ any rain, either.”

Roscoe was knee deep in dry soil, the remnants of dead, lifeless weeds in his hands. He wiped his face across the fabric of his flannel, felt the heat in the flush along his cheeks and the back of his neck. “Yeah, Gabe. I know. Called a drought for a reason.”

“Hey, don’t get all sassy with me, wise-ass. It’s the first drought around here in nearly eighty years. I think I’m allowed to talk about it,” he shot back, tossed a clump of dead weeds over his shoulder into the nearby wheelbarrow.

“The weather does what it wants to.”

“Suppose you’re right. Not what the folks in town are sayin’ though. Don’t figure you’ve heard the gossip?”

“No. I haven’t.” Gossip was something Roscoe hardly bothered to seek out, but didn’t mind the distraction from the heat and wouldn’t stop Gabe from spilling whatever beans he canned. “Enlighten me.”

“Old man Wilkes says it’s the curse of the fae, hands down. Thinks we’ve wronged them by forgettin’ about the old peace treaty or some horseshit. You know how he is.”

Wanderers settled in town over three centuries ago after wrecking their ship along the island of Trinell’s northern coast. They never quite made it to Caniden further to the south, but the stories they gained from landing in the wrong place were not lost to time. People still talked of what lured them in so many years ago. The beautiful, mesmerizing creatures that called themselves the fae. They called Griffton home long before mankind ever set foot upon the town’s soil. Born from its flourishing atmosphere, beneath the canopy of trees too tall to climb. The founders respected their ways and so, the fae respected theirs. Each kept to themselves and did not mingle, but coexisted in peace and prosperity. The fae lived their ethereal lives without fear of harm, under the protection of the townsfolk, and the townsfolk were blessed with farms that overflowed with more produce than they would ever know what to do with. Never would the humans starve or experience the hardships of drought or starvation. Here in Griffton, they would be safe, as long as they vowed to protect the fae that hid within the shadows from all that might do them harm. It was a peace that the older folks called Nature’s Blessing.

At least, that was how the stories went.

Roscoe never believed much of it. Perhaps there had been a treaty long ago, but it was certainly not with any fae. Likely, it was the result of outsiders making amends with the people who already called the land their home. It was true that crops tended to prosper. A direct result of the high quality of minerals found within the water and soil, not any sort of mystical blessing. People rarely went hungry. Again, plants grew well within the island and the ocean teemed with aquatic life. It was not a paradise free of suffering, though many were happy to call it home.

He couldn’t say the same. It was home, sure, and his family’s farm was one of the oldest. He had nowhere else to go, after all, and at least in Griffton he had a house and land to tend to. Tasks to keep his body busy and his mind quiet. It was enough to keep him around. A boring life but still a life. That was more than some people could hope for.

It took Roscoe a moment to come up with a response that wasn’t as dull as calling Wilkes batshit crazy. Which he most certainly was. “He’s old-fashioned.”

“Batshit is more like it,” Gabe huffed, with no such qualms for politeness. “He’s always talkin’ about nymphs messin’ up his garden. Just last week, he claimed a naiad tried to drown him in his own damn pool. You believe that?”

_No,_ he thought. “He probably thought he saw someone,” he said out loud. “Could’ve been his wife coming to help him.”

Gabe considered it. He was a broad, muscled man with a lot of bite, no filter and a love for hard work. The latter aspect was what motivated Roscoe to hire him in the first place. He could have managed the entire farm if he broke his back trying to do so, but it was much simpler to hire a few hands to help out with the labor. Took a long time for him to find enough people who fit his style of living. It was a fair enough deal for Gabe to put up with his lack of humor, he supposed. A good paycheck, a nice house to live in only a short walk away from his own, and free meals.

“Might be true. Or that old bat was tryin’ drown him on purpose. You think Mrs. Wilkes is capable of murder?”

The basket at his side was barely full with sad beets, carrots and leeks. Another by Roscoe’s own held spinach and other greens, only slightly damaged. So much, for only a handful of people. If he were a better man, he might have felt worried for the sake of his business and his neighbors. All he felt now was a numb sense of indifference. Knew that he should be kind in the face of the tough situation but didn’t care about the outcome.

“Everyone is capable of murder,” he hummed, half interested. “Do me a favor and take these baskets to the Wilkes’s, would you? There’s another two on the porch. Those can go to the Danisons.”

Gabe startled, blinked weather-worn green eyes. Hands loosely wrapped on one basket in question. “You sure? That’s a lot to give away. Mr. Wilkes isn’t gonna thank you for it, either.”

Roscoe stood up and brushed the dirt from his trousers, raised a hand to look up at the clear, cloudless blue sky. He gave a wordless shrug. What was there to say? He didn’t much care about being thanked. Gratefulness didn’t bring him anything. They could take the gift or let their pride stop them from accepting. That was a choice for them. “I’m heading to the orchards. You can head home after you make your deliveries.”

He could feel the other man’s eyes lingering on him, but nothing more was said.

\---

The orchards were Roscoe’s favorite place on the property. A decent acre of land dedicated to fruit trees that filled the air with the scent of their sweet, blossoming petals. A favorite of his late grandmother’s. It was their quiet place together, when he would run off from his parents and she would set out in her slow, unhurried pace to find him. They would sit beneath the trees, eating cherries by the basketful, and she would listen to anything he had to say. Not all their conversations were ones he liked. Some, he recalled, had been about the fae that he disliked hearing about so much.

“ _You don’t feel the magic like some do,_ ” his grandmother’s soft, gentle voice used to coo to him. _“It doesn’t call to you. But it’s still there, my sweet Ros. The fae’s magic is always with you.”_

He remembered her reaction when he said bluntly as many children did, _“Magic isn’t real. It’s just in fairy tales.”_

She smiled so fondly at him, with the little laugh that he swore he could still hear even long after her passing. _“The fae folk call our town their home. They’ve been here since before the first settlers arrived and they’ll be here many years after we have all disappeared. They are the creators of all those fairy tales, my dear. Beautiful men and women, unlike any you have ever seen before. Humans saw them and fell in love with their magic, their beauty and their music. We wrote stories of them, because yes they are beautiful, but they are also tricky. You can admire them, but always be wary. They never give anything for free.”_

She tried so desperately to convince him of their existence back then, so insistent that they were real, that he felt bad enough to oblige her.

When she would say, _“Look, do you see that pixie over there, by the rose bushes?”_

He would always respond with, _“Yes, nana. She has very pretty wings.”_

And maybe she knew he was lying, that he didn’t see anything at all, no more than a butterfly lazily drifting in the wind. But the way she smiled at him, like his acknowledgment was the best thing in the world? That was never fake, he knew that much.

Roscoe knew she, like many others in town, wanted desperately to believe that their lives were not so boring. That there could be a little magic in their lives. Sometimes, though, it was better to face the truth than give in to false hope.

The trees were not in bloom like they should have been. Leaves remained where flowers should have taken up residence, but the heat took its toll on all living things. There would be no fruit to pick today. It was as much as he expected. The break from his usual morning routine was a much needed one, however. His mind was sluggish and on the verge of exhaustion. He wanted to lie down in his bed and sleep, but knew that he would do nothing more than toss and turn if he tried. At least here, he could think, without feeling as though the walls were closing in around him. No one else was around to spectate his wild mood, either. Gabe rarely tended the orchards unless told to and he was adamant that the other farmhands focus on their own sections of the farm. Part of the job requirements.

He stopped by a thin, spindly cherry tree, and stepped forward to rest his forehead against the bark. An odd sight he knew it must have been, to stand beneath the tree in silence, with his arms limp at his sides and his face slack. A year ago, there would have been someone to come drag him to the house, to make him a cup of coffee and tell him to stop moping. Now, there was no one but himself, and he didn’t quite care how much moping he did as long as the day’s work was finished. Not that there was much work to be done. In this weather, he was lucky if the end of the day rewarded him with a quarter of his usual produce.

There was no crying, only silence. He had no tears to shed and even if he did, he wasn’t sure that he would ever shed them here. This tree was his favorite. It was his grandmother’s, too. Maybe she made it his favorite. Or he made it hers. Maybe she would lecture him about the state of the farm. Or comfort him and reassure him that he was doing his best. He didn’t know. All that he did know was that he was so occupied by his thoughts that he nearly missed the oddity that should have perturbed him immediately. When he glanced up, dazed from the heat and shaking off the remnants of his blue mood, he caught sight of something he had never seen before. Not in over twenty years of living in Griffton nor working in the heart of nature.

Behind several trees, hidden partially from view through the green leaves, was the bud of a flower. Not the daisies and dandelions that sprouted anywhere they could, but the distinctive shape of an aurora anemone. It would be pink and white, he could tell from the color at the bottom of the bud that faded as it moved upward. There was no such thing as signs from the heavens. _There is no such thing as heaven at all._ He believed that, but deep down, he wondered if this could be one. His grandmother’s favorite flower was blooming right here in the orchard, her favorite place, when there hadn’t been one on the farm since she was a little girl.

_“I was lucky enough to see an aurora anemone flower bloom,”_ she told him. _“It only happens once every eighty years, you know.”_

Once every eighty years. Once in a lifetime.

“You chose a bad time to grow,” Roscoe muttered as he knelt down. Picked at the nearby weeds that might impede the flower’s chance at life. “In the middle of an orchard where you can get no sun and during a drought when there’s no water, either. Out here where the only person to see you will be me.”

He was crazy to speak to a flower. It couldn’t talk back or offer him any commentary. Couldn’t even defend itself from his judgments. Yet it felt like a small reassurance to have something here to focus on. He could see that the flower was thrilling as well as his other plants, despite the bad timing, and he didn’t dare admit that it pleased him.

“You wait eighty years to grow but you couldn’t wait another one? Impatient plant. Just adding another chore to my list, aren’t you?”

Silence, of course.

“You’re lucky that you’re a pretty flower, otherwise I wouldn’t bother.”

Roscoe spent his evening carefully trimming the branches of the trees nearby to let a decent amount of sunlight through. _I needed to do it anyway,_ he told himself, but he knew it wasn’t strictly true. Watered it with a metal can, which he hoped would work better than it had on his crops. He wanted the flower to grow and live. It needed more care than his crops. Flowers weren’t his specialty. But it was small and helpless. So if he could help, he would. If only to entertain himself.

\---

Three days passed. It never rained. Not a single drop of water to give mercy to the dry earth. Things in the town were growing a bit tense. Roscoe’s offerings of fresh produce were never turned down but they weren’t exactly welcomed gifts. The Wilkes, the Danisons, the hot-headed Lanisters. None of them wanted to be put into the position of having little to no produce to sell and they didn’t want to rely on anyone else to get by. At the same time, none of them were willing to turn down the help they so clearly needed. The town’s community was close-knit but not always the most friendly. They coexisted, at the very least, and tolerated one another at most.

Tensions were only made worse, given that Roscoe’s farm seemed to be powering through the drought with better results. The grass was browned and dying, the crops in the fields looking a little worse for wear, but they were still growing. He still had produce to sell and food to eat. No one said so out loud, but he suspected the townsfolk were not pleased.

The only plant that disregarded the bad conditions was, of course, the anemone flower. He checked on it daily, each evening when he finished tending the fields, and each day it seemed to be doing better. It had nearly tripled in size, the pink more vibrant, the leaves curled up around it like a protective cocoon. He shouldn’t have spent as much time in the orchard as he did. _Wasted time._

By the fourth day, he took to bringing a book with him. To justify the extra time spent in the sun and not caring for the state of his train wreck of a kitchen or the pile of laundry that needed doing. His escape had nothing to do with the only plant within all of Griffton that fared well in the cursed heat. Nothing to do with it at all, even if he purposefully chose a spot beneath a shaded tree to sit and glanced up from his chapter every so often to gaze at it.

A week went by before he realized that something was not quite right with the flower in question. On the morning of the seventh day, he woke a tad too early and managed to cram down a small breakfast of oatmeal without his stomach churning in protest. The sun had not yet risen along the horizon, the air blissfully cool as he stepped outside. There was no book in his hand this time, no excuse for why he made a beeline to the flower today. He could think of no reason to cover up his desire to see it again.

As he stepped over the dusty path, he caught sight of the flower. If he could still call it that. The soft light of morning casted shadows of his own form down upon the flower’s open petals. Layers of petals, in hues of pink and white. It was a monstrosity of a plant, however beautiful it may have been, for it stood as tall as his waist and stretched four times as wide. He was not a small man, but even at well over six feet, he felt nearly dwarfed by the unusual fauna. His first desire was to reach out and touch it, to see if the flower was as soft and delicate as it looked. His second, on the other hand, was to grab a nearby stick to prod at it.

Roscoe chose the second option. Prodded at the flower with a long twig he picked up from the ground, lifting one petal as easily as he might a feather. It weighed next to nothing, in spite of its size. The leaves, the roots, all of it stayed unsurprisingly still throughout his investigation.

_A flower is a flower,_ his brain supplied in explanation. Strange as it might be, it was just that: a flower. Nothing particularly odd, other than the sheer size that it grew in such a short amount of time. Could be that it was simply a new, never before seen species of fauna, possibly not native to the area, and not the anemone he first thought it to be. Rarely was he wrong in his identifications, but he wouldn’t rule out the possibility. He couldn’t say for sure, except that he wouldn’t allow himself to even consider an idea that was beyond the realm of plausibility.

_The fae are born from nature, from flowers and trees, rivers and oceans._

No. It was myths and legends with the so-called fae. Stories to scare children into staying away from the forest, where dangerous animals and rough terrain could easily claim a young life. Tales from drunkards and drug addicts, so lost in their own delusions that they couldn’t tell fact from fiction.

_I don’t believe in this nonsense._

Roscoe wondered if it might be best to burn the flower, in the off chance that it might grow any larger. Both to protect the fruit trees around it and for his own peace of mind. It was not uncommon to set fire to large patches of invasive or harmful plant species that took root. He reasoned that this was no different. It was a nuisance, ruining his fence and taking up space. Never mind the fact that it gave him the creeps, the way it popped up out of nowhere like a blemish on the face of his teenage self. The disturbed earth and torn up grass around it meant that it was attracting unwanted animals, as well, and that was no good.

His trip to the barn for the spare can of oil and a box of matches was quick, less than ten minutes at most, yet all was different when he arrived. The flower was still present, but no longer was it the only oddity to be found. There, nestled in the center of the flower and coated in snow-soft pollen, was a man.

An entirely _naked_ man.

From head to shoulders, he wore nothing at all. No shirt, no pants. Dusty, rose colored hair framed a face that couldn’t be described as anything other than elfin. Small nose, a pointed chin and high cheekbones. Skin as bronze and flawless as a glass doll. The eyes that blinked back at him were blue as the sky above and creepy as all hell; they lacked pupils and sclera. All blue. He could only tell they were a man by what lay beneath a patch of curls, just under his navel, and his eyes shot immediately back up to his face.

Too perfect to be real. Beautiful in a horrific manner of being too fake, too seamless.

It was the wings that unnerved him most. Pale pink and dark black, butterfly-like. Twitching, moving. Roscoe fought down a shiver of revulsion.

He lay on his side, curled lazily against a ray of light, and studied Roscoe with a sickly sweet smile. “Jonah,” the man spoke in a giggle, soft like the chime of a bell. He said the name with reverence, as if he enjoyed the way it rolled off his tongue. “Jonah. You waited for me, my Jonah.”


End file.
